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Let Unconstitutional Federal Government Surveillance of Americans Lapse
Section 702 always has been unconstitutional; Congress should let it lapse.
Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is up for renewal.
- Ivan Eland
- The National Interest
The section authorizes the government to collect the communications of foreigners abroad, even if those foreigners are talking about or to Americans.
The government can query, using identifiers of Americans, a massive database of private messages gleaned from American companies, such as Google or AT&T, without a court-approved search warrant.
The FBI established some limits on such warrantless searches of Americans’ data.
Still, FBI officials have, numerous…